USB Device over current status detected [ASUS motherboard]

An ASUS ROGSTRIX B450-F gaming motherboard that I have had been working perfectly fine for a year. Suddenly though, booting up the system resulted in the following message on the POST boot screen:

The system would shutdown and restarting would result in the same message. I couldn't get into the BIOS either as the del and F2 keys did nothing.

After much frustration and reading, here are things to try out to overcome the issue ... This is not a step-by-step fix, but a bunch of assorted ideas that might help:

• Disconnect all USB devices and try booting up. Remember to check your front USB ports as well and keep an eye out for tiny flash drives and dongles. If you're using a PS/2 device, disconnect that too.
• Check all USB ports for physical and burn damage.
• Turn off the system at the PSU and disconnect the power cable for a few minutes, plug it back in and try again. Yes, you're now desperate.
• Now it's time to get your hands dirty. Get/Download your motherboard manual and read up on all things to do with USB. Particularly, look for connectors on the motherboard that link to the Front USB ports in your case. Once you find it, pull the connector(s) out. Of course, do this with the power off.
• If that doesn't do it, then it's time to get your hands even dirtier. Check your manual for instructions on how to clear/reset your BIOS. You will invariably need to find the CLRTC (clear real-time clock) header on your motherboard and short it for a couple of minutes using a jumper. (It will often be a 2-pin header next to the CMOS battery.) There should be plenty of tutorials out there that tell you how to do this. You can also consider pulling out the CMOS battery. This should all be done with the PSU plug pulled out.

  Booting up now will tell you that you need to reset your BIOS and give you an option ("Press F1" or similar) to do so. In my case, it would tell me to reset the BIOS but not offer any option to do so and instead give me the over current status message and shut down. I would have to do a cold-reboot repeatedly and luck out to get the reset option. Anyhow, get into the BIOS, "load optimized defaults" or similar, save changes and reboot the system to see if it helps.

  (If you are keen, you can also look into updating your BIOS to the latest version. My board's BIOS had an option to update over the Internet and I did. But it didn't help.)

  If resetting the BIOS didn't help and you're still getting the error, then reset the BIOS again and get into its advanced configuration page and look for a setting that has something to do with USB configuration. In my board's BIOS, there was one that allowed me to enable and disable USB ports on a port-by-port basis. What I did was first check if disabling all ports fixed the error and it did. Although I could not use a keyboard or mouse to use the system, I was able to shutdown and reset the BIOS once again to get back into the BIOS screen and start enabling USB ports selectively to eliminate the faulty ports one by one. The USB port designations in the manual are very handy in figuring out which ports you are disabling/enabling.

  After a lot of trial and error and many CLRTC BIOS resets later, I found that my board's front USB ports and two of my USB 2.0 rear-ports worked. None of the USB 3 works.

• There are youtube videos where people find that the error is due to a fuse burning on the board and soldering a replacement themselves. But this stuff is beyond my realm of interest/patience.
• Even if all your ports are dead but the board is working otherwise, you can consider getting a PCIE USB card or similar to add new ports to your system. If only some of your ports are dead, you can use a USB hub/extender to get more ports.

Hope this helps!